Mom died two years ago on November 5. She was 80. I have recently had dreams that Dad has died although he is very much alive at 93.
Great Blessings
Playing cards
I appreciate this time I have with Dad. We play cribbage if it is just the two of us playing games. We play double-deck euchre if Rita and Denise are there. We play three-handed pinochle if it’s just Dad, Rita and me and Rita isn’t busy with other things. Every Sunday, with very few exceptions, Denise and I are at Dad’s playing cards and maybe simultaneously watching a baseball or football game depending on the season.
Every Sunday that I spend time with Dad is a great blessing. Time with Denise is a bonus blessing. It was also a great blessing that Denise and I were with Mom in the nursing home when she died two years ago.
Impossible Changes
Channeling mom
Two years ago? That seems impossible. My sofa has been in two different positions since Mom died. How is that relevant, you ask? Well, I don’t usually change things. Once I figure out how I like things, I don’t move them around. Why should I? I like them the way they are. However, these past two years have offered me a plethora of opportunities to give up my usual practices. Therefore, I have attempted to channel some of my mother’s attributes because I am not naturally like her in this way.
Mom was always moving – if not to actual different houses, then she was moving all the furniture around. She always changed things up. She was, late in life, only 4’ 3” tall. However, earlier in her life, she was her tallest at only 4’ 11 ¾”, yet she would move all of her furniture by herself no matter how big or heavy it was.
Petite Package
Counting qualities
She had an antique free-standing safe that took four men to move out of her house, but she would move that ginormously heavy safe on her own whenever she wanted the room to have a new look. She was a very determined, persistent, resilient, strong woman. I know grown men who are taller than 6’ and who could pick her up and carry her out of the room, but who would never, ever want to cross her. They were scared of making her angry or of disappointing her. Most people I know didn’t mess with ma mere despite the petite package she was.
In addition to these “self” qualities, Mom had “other” qualities. She always was generous – she gave even when she didn’t have. She volunteered as a tutor for an adult literacy program. She was an EMT in the local ambulance service’s beginnings back in the ‘70s. She led Bible study sessions at a local senior living establishment. She invited friends and family to live with her when they needed a temporary place to stay. She home-schooled a grandchild when the public school classroom became a nonproductive place. She put in a pool and became the summer hangout for her grandchildren while their parents worked. She cared for and loved others through a hospice organization and through a home care services company. She did all of these things, sometimes at the expense of herself. All of these things aren’t even half of what she did in her 80 years in this realm.
Deaf Ear
Reconnecting photo shoot
It has been two years, and I have done nothing. I have a bunch of her boxes of photos. I also have some pieces of her writings. I have not done much with any of them. I have occasionally looked through the photos to find those that will appropriately accompany my blog posts. Yet, I have not scanned them, organized them or done what I should do with them. I have done absolutely nothing with her writing. All of the used-to-be-Mom's stuff in my possession sits in the attic, which is in complete disarray. This stuff might be calling my name, yet I turn a deaf ear.
I ask myself why I haven’t done more. I ask myself what I am going to do with these things of Mom’s. I ask myself what I have been doing for the past two years. I then ask myself what I plan to do for the next two years. I don’t have answers to any of my questions.
What I do when I feel stuck, when I don’t want to do anything, when I am staring at the computer screen, when I am restless or when I am dull, I take Mom’s heart-shaped glasses out for a photo shoot. I ask them where they want to go. I reconnect to nature and to Mom because, whether I admit it to myself or not, I miss the mom who supported me and encouraged me, who accepted me for who I am, who loved me unconditionally.
Clear Vision
Trying glasses on
Yesterday, my mom’s glasses and I went out for a photo shoot at the Hennepin Canal. I listened to the birds, saw a buck, walked a good distance and took more than 100 photos with and without Mom’s glasses in them, and for the first time ever, I put her glasses on my face and took a selfie. I couldn’t see anything at the canal clearly with them on, but I could see that ma mere’s love has always been with me.
Sending you an irreplaceable and unconditional parental kind of love,
Angela Jane